"Forging the Shield" tells the story of the U.S. Army in Europe during the critical 1950s and early 1960s. It spans the period between the return of major U.S. combat forces to Germany in 1951 and the aftermath of the Berlin crisis of 1961-1962. During that time, the troops in Europe became the public face of the Army to Europeans and Americans as well as to the rest of the world. The service directed almost all of its training, equipment, and force development toward that potential day when its troops would face Soviet divisions streaming through the Fulda Gap and into Germany. The establishment of a credible conventional deterrent in Germany, backed up with our nuclear forces, was one of the central linchpins of the U.S. strategy of containment of Soviet power. It was a visible symbol to the world that America had placed its flag and its soldiers-its citizens-in-arms-in harm's way to reinforce its commitment to peace and freedom in Europe. This important volume tells the story of the U.S. Army in the early days of the Cold War as our commitment evolved into the multigenerational defense of Europe and the values of freedom. The Army in Europe has remained a central pillar of U.S. defense and foreign policy throughout the Cold War and into the new reality of post-Cold War Europe today.

The U.S. Army Before Vietnam, 1953-1965, by Donald A. Carter, covers the period between the end of the Korean War and the initial deployment of ground combat troops to Vietnam. It describes the organizational and doctrinal changes the Army implemented as it attempted to digest the lessons of one conflict and to prepare the force for another. The pamphlet also discusses the service's efforts to maintain its position in national defense within the parameters of President Eisenhower's New Look strategic policy. A key issue for the Army was the question of how to prepare a force to operate on an atomic battlefield. In order to compete with the Air Force and the Navy for a diminishing defense budget, the Army had to show that it, too, was a modern, forward-thinking organization, prepared to integrate a new family of tactical atomic weapons into its organization and doctrine. The resulting experiment with the Pentomic division forced Army leaders to reexamine some of their most basic assumptions about future conflict. With the increasing influence of Communist China throughout Southeast Asia, the Army also began to pay greater attention toward counterinsurgency and guerilla warfare. President Kennedy's interest in a doctrine of flexible response and his concern for combatting Communist inspired insurrections prompted the Army to increase training in unconventional warfare and to highlight the capabilities of its developing special forces--the Green Berets. Related products: The U.S. Army's Transition to the All-Volunteer Force, 1968-1974 -Print Paperback format is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00536-1 United States Army in World War 2, Special Studies, Manhattan, the Army, and the Atomic Bomb-Print Clothbound format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-029-00132-2 Building the Bombs: A History of the Nuclear Weapons Complex is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/061-000-00968-0 Vietnam War resources collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/vietn... China product collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/international-foreign-affairs/asia/china

This illustrated book that includes tables, charts, and maps primarily discusses the role of USAREUR (US Army Europe) in rearming and training the new German Army which was perhaps the Army's single greatest contribution toward maintaining security in Western Europe. Likewise, the relationship between American soldiers and their French and West German hosts evolved over time and is a critical element in telling the story of the US Army in Europe.

"This book covers the U.S. Army's occupation of Berlin from 1945 to 1949. This time includes the end of WWII up to the end of the Berlin Airlift. Talks about the set up of occupation by four-power rule."--Provided by publisher

The St. Mihiel salient, created during the initial German invasion in 1914, had withstood multiple French efforts to regain the territory. Yet even though the Germans had established strong defensive positions around St. Mihiel and its neighboring villages and towns, the salient was highly vulnerable to attack and was an optimal target for a potential American operation. Until this point in the war, members of the American Expeditionary Forces had not fought in a formation larger than a corps, and then only under French or British leadership. Now, as part of the American First Army under General John J. Pershing, they prepared to launch an offensive that would demonstrate to the Allies and the Germans alike that the Americans were capable of operating as an independent command. The AEF's successful efforts in the St. Mihiel Offensive, and the hard-won operational and tactical lessons that it learned during the battle, helped set the stage for the grand Allied offensive that would seize the initiative on the Western Front and blaze a path toward ultimate victory in the war.

"The decade after the Korean War was a turbulent time for the U.S. Army. It faced a burgeoning struggle for primacy with the Air Force and Navy, which seemed to fit better into President Eisenhower's New Look strategy and its focus on nuclear weapons. The personnel-intensive nature of ground warfare also put the Army in the crosshairs of the administration's efforts to rein in defense spending during a time of rapid and expensive technological change that took primacy in the budget. Army leaders sought to leverage their own research and development efforts to make their service a bigger player in the nuclear arena and to demonstrate their own forward-looking approach to future conflict. Many of those programs did not pan out because of the limits of scientific innovation or the weakness of the concepts themselves. As the largest and seemingly least glamorous of the military services, the Army had difficulty attracting enough quality personnel and continued to rely heavily on the draft. Although the service largely had completed racial integration, the Army's high proportion of major bases in southern states and its involvement in civilian desegregation struggles there kept it in the forefront of the ongoing national problem of racial discord. Notwithstanding those troubles, the U.S. Army not only formed a credible deterrent force against a potential major conventional conflict in Europe with the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact, but it also made significant and enduring changes that prepared it better for the war it would fight in Vietnam. The service quickly and wisely cast aside the failed pentomic structure and replaced it with a much more flexible system that could adapt to a mix of capabilities and a wider array of missions. It developed better, more capable helicopters and, equally significant, acquired them in substantial numbers and created an innovative, workable air mobile doctrine and a divisional organization to execute such operations. While the Army, not surprisingly, took the lead in advising and assisting the fledgling Army of South Vietnam, it also devoted considerable attention to the question of fighting a guerrilla war. Via doctrine, plans, formal schools, and training evolutions, it thus had more than a passing familiarity with that growing realm of conflict. From New Look to Flexible Response explains how the Army and its leaders maneuvered at the institutional level through this tumultuous period"--

Early in the morning of 12 September 1918, nearly half a million American soldiers crouched in forward trench lines along a sixty five-kilometer section of the Western Front, waiting for the signal to advance. The target of the American-planned and American executed operation was a massive salient that had bedeviled the Allies since late 1914. Until this point in the World War, members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) had not fought in a formation larger than a corps, and then only under French or British leadership. Now, as part of the newly formed American First Army under the command of General John J. Pershing, they prepared to launch an operation that was, according to one historian, "America's first truly great modern battle." The four-day offensive would not only serve as a baptism of fire for the First Army but also demonstrate to the Allies and the Germans alike that the Americans were capable of operating as an independent command. The action showed how far the U.S. Army had progressed in its evolution from a frontier constabulary to a modern combined arms maneuver force, and it helped set the stage for the grand Allied offensive that would seize the initiative all along the Western Front and blaze a path toward ultimate victory in the war.